Another left-handed homage to Poe. This one is definitely not for kids.

I.

Hear the ringing of the bells,
Front-door bells!
Time to open up the door and see what this one sells:Thirty Days to Total Fitness?
“Act today! You’ll get a present!”
Or a mad Jehovah’s Witness
Come to make herself unpleasant?
Come to pry at your endurance
Every Tupperwhere you look?
Come to sell you life insurance,
Or a Dianetics book?
Come to ring upon the bell,
on the bell, bell bell —
You can never, ever tell
by the bell
if they mean you ill or well.
Then the buzzing of the clock you
couldn’t stand at 5 a.m.,
Or the loud alarms that shock you
When a burglar breaks your lock? You
Wax nostalgic over them.
You can never, ever tell
Not by sight or sound or smell,
Who’s come ringing at the bell,
at the bell, bell, bell;Damn the bell, bell, bell, bell,
bell, bell, bell;
Something worse than just a curse upon the bell.

II.

Hear the droning of the bells,
Bismuth bells,
From the stern monotony of bureaucratic hells!
How you whimper, whimper, whimper
As their voices crash to earth,
Drag your drooping spirits limper
And exungulate your mirth!
How the hellish, heavy thunder
Pounding down about your head
Seems to split the world asunder
With the crying of the dying
And the groaning of the dead!
As the bells strain in their courses,
Comes Apocalypse, no less:
Unimaginable forces —
Seven wraiths on demon horses —
OH MY GOD! THE I.R.S.!!

Carried forward by the knells
Of the bells, bells, bells,
And the pounding of the hoofbeats
That come raining down like shells —
To the bleating and the beating
of the bells, bells, bells
Of the bells, etc.
And the taxes, and the bills!
And the bills, bills, bills,
For they’ve got you by the balls
With the bills
And the sense of deep futility that flatteningly falls
On the balls, balls, balls, balls,
Balls, balls, balls
From the tolling of the bureaucratic bells.

III.

Hear the boinging of the bells,
Rubber bells!
What a world of imbecility their peal compels!
How they blither, blither, blither
In the trembling ear of night;
And their music, bumbling hither,
Makes the cerebellum wither
With its idiot’s delight.
And you can’t escape the feeling
As you stand amid the din:
If the bells continue pealing,
Soon you won’t have any skin.
They are neither dead nor living —
Neither vengeful nor forgiving —
They are boobs,
And their god it is who giggles
As he jiggles, jiggles, jiggles,
Jiggles panic from the bells,
From the bells;
And his frilly wimple wiggles,
And his merry organ swells
And accompanies the bells —
Oh, the bells, bells, bells,
Ugh! the bells, bills, boils, biles,
bowels, bulls, bells!
Oh, the drooling and the puling of the bells.